Royals: It's a girl!

[Rue]

-1 you asked a good question that deserves an answer.I know for this generation of Canadians the monarchy seems irrelevant. I get that but I will t ry answer your question. In one sense the British monarchy is a legacy of fierce psychotic men who gained their crown by brute force. Then it evolved into a family line and one could argue it caused inbreeding and you bet Britain was a violent place with insane autocratic leaders beheading people, crating all kinds of illegitimate offspring and at one point the monarchy was so inbred they developed the same pointed chins,mental illnesses, etc.

Yes its full of insane an incestuous people but its more than that.

The whole system which some call elitist and unfair was supposed to promote a method to keep the country united.That same monarchy that starte off violent and inbred evolved as a system to make laws, and provide continuity.

The best way to explain its importance is WW2. The word was at war fighting a mad man Hitler. The Royal Family stayed in London. King George and his wife walked the streets everyday and it provided hope at a time of sheer insanity.

Queen Elizabeth fixed cars in the army pool. Her father took over a throne vacated by his idiot brother and rallied a nation with a sense of calm.

That monarchy was a symbol that in spite of it all, people would prevail in the midst of despair and people need hope and symbols for just that and this is what it provided-in that sense it provided a similar function to conventional religious symbols and practices.

For people now far removed from WW2 they have no idea Prince Philip was a navy Captain who volunteered to do the most dangerous missions and survived a sinking.

As flaky as Charles and Andrew may appear, they were legitimate military officers and did their time and so did Harry and William.

Princess Anne who you may not know spends the most time representing charities and is admire for that. These people with their small talk and presence keep glued together an elaborate and extensive network of social services and charities. That is why they are admired.

Yes they are a tourism attraction absolutely and a very important one for the economy but their charity work is not appreciated.

So for some in Canada they are a symbol of hope, continuity, common value not elitism.

Say what you want but to spend the time the monarchy has on shaking hands, visiting hospitals, charities, functions, takes a lot of energy and patience.

Its a job they have not asked for but take on.

Its a burden.

I never understood when I was young why my father identified so much with when he was in the armed services but after years of listening to vets I understood it was their way of focusing in a world of chaos. It kept them going.

When you are young traditions seem stupid. As you age you appreciate their importance for some as a way to maintain hope and dignity.

[-1=e^ipi]

Because it is possibly the new head of state for more than one country! Including Canada!

I have a better idea. Referendum ASAP and let's make Canada a Republic. I'm sure that most people in Quebec would agree with me.

Its a job they have not asked for but take on.

Its a burden.

If the existence of the monarchy is a burden and is unfair to the Royal Family, then that is all the more reason to abolish it.

[Big Guy]

My last guess is Charlotte, Elizabeth, Diana.

[Guest]

Yeah, I'm betting on that too.

I was only kidding about Brandy.

Sigh...

[Wilber]

Named after George III's wife. Americans should like that.

[Wilber]

Royals have traditionally been Naval Officers. George VI was an officer on a battleship during WW1's largest sea battle at Jutland. As mentioned. Phillip was also a serving Naval officer in the Mediterranean during WW2. Mountbatten was a destroyer captain who had his ship severely damaged in the Norway campaign and eventually sunk under him during the evacuation of Crete. Charles commanded a mine sweeper in the Gulf and Andrew flew Sea Kings in the Falklands War. William and Harry broke this tradition by serving in the Air Force and Army.

Royals have never been play soldiers.

[guyser]

Royals have never been play soldiers.

Didnt the Queen serve as one? She was a mechanic in the motorpool during WW2.

[Wilber]

Didnt the Queen serve as one? She was a mechanic in the motorpool during WW2.

Mechanic and driver apparently. Military service is regarded as an obligation of male royals but not females. I guess that was her idea.

[guyser]

Mechanic and driver apparently. Military service is regarded as an obligation of male royals but not females. I guess that was her idea.

Doesnt that make her a soldier though? That was the question.

She may not (in fact I think she didnt) have seen action or the front, but serving is serving and for that, all these Royals get a pass from me.

[Wilber]

Doesnt that make her a soldier though? That was the question.

She may not (in fact I think she didnt) have seen action or the front, but serving is serving and for that, all these Royals get a pass from me.

Women didn't serve in combat roles during WWII, unless they were Russian. The closest they might get to a front was behind the lines in the medical corps which could be risky. Mind you, lots of women went into occupied countries as agents and lots of them died doing it. Wonder if her French was good enough. Probably not.

[WWWTT]

I have a better idea. Referendum ASAP and let's make Canada a Republic. I'm sure that most people in Quebec would agree with me.

If the existence of the monarchy is a burden and is unfair to the Royal Family, then that is all the more reason to abolish it.

Agreed!

WWWTT

[Wilber]

Royal or not, I like the the idea of a head of state who isn't a politician.

[Rue]

-1 when I used the word burden you pulled it out of context. I meant heavy and serious responsibility not some cushy privilege.

The point I am making is that you couldn't handle the work day of Princess Ann and as Wilber clarified Royals serve and have served.Philip and his Uncle both almost died in WW2.In fact Philip refuses to discuss what he did because vets do not bring attention to their own deeds.

Elizabeth fixed cars down and dirty. More important, she walked the streets very young after the bombings smiling, staying calm, serving as an emotional cushion for frightened people. You try that. She watched the strain her father was under and it kill him. She witnessed her mother stay calm and never show fear. They were directly emotionally connected to their citizens.

Today you may not appreciate the continuity symbols of the monarchy but people like me do. I believe its a symbol of how civility and order and logic will prevail and continue.

I understand more and more Canadians feel no connection to the monarchy reflecting their own non British origins. Me I am not British in origin but its what kept my father going as a serviceman in WW2 and I will always understand his connection to it.

The monarchy did not mean elitism to him, it meant a common rallying point behind a figure who was beyond corruption and upheld the most fundamental precepts of fairness, civility and equality.

I don't really dwell on the Royal children, etc., I repect the history and symbolism and traditions. Those are to me far bigger than the actual royals at any given time.

I used to think Charles was a flake but I saw an interview with him once on gardening, and it became obvious beneath all that royal stuff, was someone who had knowledge of history, architecture, and was quite simple and self effacing. I was shocked in fact at how normal and intelligent he was.Ann I saw an interview with.A complete battle ax worker no nonsense intense work all the time woman and man she takes her riding seriously .

I happen to like the documentaries on Liz showing her to be a tough, brutally honest, simple woman. Edward I don't like.To prissy. Harry I like. My fave was the last King George. Victoria and Liz the 1st were probably the most noteworthy.Henry the 8th was another but plain George I liked.

I think Queen Mary after WW1 played an imp. role.The worst King, tie between Charles the Second and that idiot who abdicated and ran off with the Americam whore. Bah.

Edited May 6, 2015 by Rue

[Wilber]

Flew Ann from Ottawa to London years ago. No fanfare, we didn't know she was on the flight until a duty free lady told us. Just her and two minders in Business class. Had a long day and just wanted to sleep. When we arrived at Heathrow, a Range Rover pulled up in front of the aircraft with a driver complete with ribbons. She was one of last to deplane, went down the steps, jumped into the drivers seat and drove off with the driver beside her and the minders and luggage in the back.

She was on the England 3 Day Equestrian Event team at the Montreal Olympics. England is one of the very top countries in eventing so it is a tough team to make and one of the most dangerous sports there is.

Why Charles the Second? "The Merry Monarch". His father and brother were worse.

[Je suis Omar]

Try that in North Korea. The wonderful prison camps where generations of your children can grow up there.

Or in Canada and the USA where generations of aboriginals, who weren't killed, were placed in the equivalent of prison camps.

Now, after using the much vaunted freedom of speech meme to reinforce the myths, you'll exercise that same freedom of speech by ignoring USA/Canadian government policy.

Edited May 8, 2015 by Je suis Omar

[Je suis Omar]

Royals have traditionally been ...

Royals have never been play soldiers.

Nor have they been play war criminals or play terrorists.

Diego Garcia - Paradise Cleansed

John Pilger

...

During the 1960s, in high secrecy, the Labor government of Harold Wilson conspired with two American administrations to "sweep" and "sanitize" the islands: the words used in American documents. Files found in the National Archives in Washington and the Public Record Office in London provide an astonishing narrative of official lying all too familiar to those who have chronicled the lies over Iraq.

To get rid of the population, the Foreign Office invented the fiction that the islanders were merely transient contract workers who could be "returned" to Mauritius, 1,000 miles away. In fact, many islanders traced their ancestry back five generations, as their cemeteries bore witness. The aim, wrote a Foreign Office official in January 1966, "is to convert all the existing residents ... into short-term, temporary residents."

What the files also reveal is an imperious attitude of brutality. In August 1966, Sir Paul Gore-Booth, permanent undersecretary at the Foreign Office, wrote: "We must surely be very tough about this. The object of the exercise was to get some rocks that will remain ours. There will be no indigenous population except seagulls." At the end of this is a handwritten note by D.H. Greenhill, later Baron Greenhill: "Along with the Birds go some Tarzans or Men Fridays ..." Under the heading, "Maintaining the fiction," another official urges his colleagues to reclassify the islanders as "a floating population" and to "make up the rules as we go along."

There is not a word of concern for their victims. Only one official appeared to worry about being caught, writing that it was "fairly unsatisfactory" that "we propose to certify the people, more or less fraudulently, as belonging somewhere else." The documents leave no doubt that the cover-up was approved by the prime minister and at least three cabinet ministers.

At first, the islanders were tricked and intimidated into leaving; those who had gone to Mauritius for urgent medical treatment were prevented from returning. As the Americans began to arrive and build the base, Sir Bruce Greatbatch, the governor of the Seychelles, who had been put in charge of the "sanitizing," ordered all the pet dogs on Diego Garcia to be killed. Almost 1,000 pets were rounded up and gassed, using the exhaust fumes from American military vehicles. "They put the dogs in a furnace where the people worked," says Lizette Tallatte, now in her 60s," ... and when their dogs were taken away in front of them, our children screamed and cried."

...

http://www.antiwar.com/orig/pilger.php?articleid=3702

Edited May 13, 2015 by Je suis Omar